Diana Miller, Countess of Mértola

Diana Mary Miller, 11th Countess of Mértola, 15th Baroness Conyers, 9th Baroness Fauconberg (5 July 1920 - 2 March 2013)^[1] was the eldest daughter of Sackville Pelham, 5th Earl of Yarborough.

On the death of her father in 1948, she inherited the Portuguese countship of Mértola, while she and her sister, Lady Wendy Lycett became co-heirs to the baronies of Fauconberg and Conyers, which went into abeyance. The death of her sister in 2012^[2] terminated the abeyance in favour of the Countess, who succeeded in the baronies at that point.^[3] Since her own death in 2013, the titles are in abeyance once more.

On 15 November 1952, Lady Diana married Robert Miller (d. 1990, in an automobile accident in Harare) and they had two daughters - who are now co-heiresses to the baronies - Marcia Anne (born 21 June 1954) and Beatrix Diana (born 23 August 1955). When pregnant with her second child, Lady Diana rejected her baby daughter and put her up for adoption. The baby was adopted by Moira Lycett and her husband Michael, who changed her name to Anthea. Then in August 1958, when Moira Lycett and Anthea were flying to London in a Central African Airways Viscount, the plane crashed near Benghazi. Moira was killed and Anthea injured. Lady Diana's family sought to reclaim the child, but Michael Lycett refused; in 1959, however, he married her aunt, Lady Wendy, who thus became Anthea's adoptive mother. Anthea is the senior member of the Protestant Stuart line and is a tenth cousin, once removed to Queen Elizabeth II, being descended from Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia. Beatrix Diana married in 1991 Simon William Jones Armstrong, son of C. W. Armstrong. The couple has two sons.

References

• Burke's Peerage
• Who's Who 2009